By Ted Hesson and Mica Rosenberg
(Reuters) – Donald Trump is highlighting crimes committed by migrants in the United States illegally as part of his campaign to retake the White House, repeating rhetoric he used during his previous presidential bid. However, studies show that immigrants are not more likely to commit crime.
What does Trump say about immigrants and crime?
Former US President Donald Trump, a Republican challenging President Joe Biden in November’s election, has focused on immigrants in the US illegally as part of his argument for stricter border controls.
Trump says Biden’s policies are overly permissive and brands crimes committed by immigrants in the country illegally as “Biden migrant crime.”
Recently, Trump and Republicans have focused on the case of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student from Georgia who was allegedly murdered illegally by a Venezuelan in the country.
The Republican National Committee launched a website earlier this month called “Biden Bloodbath” that highlights anecdotal incidents involving migrants in eight states, including campaign hotspots such as Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
How did Biden react?
Biden was interrupted during his State of the Union address in March by Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, who called on Biden to acknowledge the killing.
Biden responded that Riley was “an innocent woman killed by an illegal.” He then asked how many people were killed by “legals” – apparently referring to legal citizens and others in the country.
Biden later said he regretted calling Riley’s accused killer “illegal” and said the act should have been “undocumented.”
Biden’s top border official, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, said at a reporters’ roundtable last week that he “deeply disagrees” with efforts “to demonize all migrants based on the actions of one individual.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said earlier this month that violent rhetoric was being used “to tear our country apart.”
Do immigrants commit more crimes than natives?
A number of studies by academics and think tanks have shown that immigrants are no more likely to commit crimes than U.S.-born Americans.
A more limited number of studies specifically examine crime among illegal immigrants in the United States, but also conclude that they are not more likely to commit crimes.
A selection of current research results:
“Immigration and Crime: Assessing a Contentious Issue” by Charis Kubrin, professor of criminology at the University of California, Irvine, and Graham Ousey, professor of sociology at William & Mary. The 2018 study was published in the peer-reviewed Annual Review of Criminology. * A meta-analysis of more than fifty studies on the relationship between immigration and crime between 1994 and 2014 found that there is no significant relationship between the two. * The researchers then examined all aspects of the problem in a book published last year that found similar results.
“Law-Abiding Immigrants: The Incarceration Gap Between Immigrants and U.S. Citizens, 1870-2020,” by Ran Abramitzky, an economics professor at Stanford University, and four other researchers. The 2024 working paper was published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. * The study, which used U.S. Census data, found that immigrants had lower incarceration rates than those born in the U.S. over a 150-year period.
“Comparing Crime Rates Between Undocumented Immigrants, Legal Immigrants, and Texas-born U.S. Citizens,” by Michael Light, a sociology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and two other researchers. The 2020 study was published in the peer-reviewed Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. * The report, which used data from the Texas Department of Public Safety between 2012 and 2018, found that the U.S. illegal crime arrest rate is lower compared to legal immigrants and native-born U.S. citizens and that there is no evidence of a increasing crime among immigrants. * Light published a study in 2017 that found illegal immigration does not increase violent crime. The study used data from all 50 U.S. states and Washington, D.C. from 1990 to 2014. A separate study found no connection between increasing illegal immigration and drunk driving deaths.
Cato Institute research by Alex Nowrasteh and others * The libertarian think tank has released several reports showing that immigrants commit fewer crimes in the country than the native-born. In a recent USA Today editorial, Nowrasteh previewed new research that found immigrants in Texas are about 26% less likely than U.S.-born Americans to be convicted of murder from 2013-2022.
How reliable is the data?
Several of the above studies were conducted by academic researchers and published in academic journals.
The studies rely on a variety of data sources, including U.S. Census records and estimates of the number of illegal immigrants in the United States.
Several reports examining immigrant crime rates in the U.S. illegally use data from the Texas Department of Public Safety, which tracks immigration status in its arrest records.
Michael Light, one of the researchers who used the Texas data, said crime rates likely vary from state to state, but the Texas numbers are the best available.
Nowrasteh of the Cato Institute said researchers would have a better idea of the country’s illegal immigrant crime rate if other states maintained and shared data in the same way as Texas.
Are there studies that show that immigrants are more likely to commit crimes?
The Center for Immigration Studies, a research group that advocates for lower immigration rates, has argued that researchers using data from the Texas Department of Public Safety undercounted crimes committed by illegal immigrants in the country.
The group said in 2022 that both Michael Light and Nowrasteh had failed to account for immigrants who were found to be in the country illegally after being detained. Nowrasteh disputed the CIS criticism, saying the group had illegally double-counted some offenders in the country.
In its own 2009 study, the CIS found that “there is no clear evidence that immigrants commit crimes more or less often than others.”
A 2018 study using Arizona state prison records from 1985-2017 found that immigrants in the country illegally were more likely to be convicted of a crime. The study by conservative economist John Lott found that illegal immigrants in the U.S. tend to commit more serious crimes and serve longer prison sentences. But Nowrasteh, of the Cato Institute, criticized the findings, saying Lott included immigrants who had legal status in the U.S. and who may have violated the terms of a visa by committing a crime.
Is it possible that trends have changed recently?
The data used to determine crime rates is usually several years old and therefore does not provide any explicit conclusions about current or future trends.
However, some studies found consistent patterns over long periods of time.
Several researchers mentioned that more families and unaccompanied children have been caught crossing the border over the past decade, groups that are statistically less likely to commit crimes.
Michael Light, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said that overall, U.S. research does not suggest that immigrants are more likely to commit crimes.
“Of course foreign-born people have committed crimes,” Light said in an interview. “But do foreign-born people commit crimes disproportionately more often than native-born people? The answer is pretty clear: no.”